A Disaster From My Personal Dating Archives: He Got My Name Wrong AFTER Our Date

Yesterday when I was writing about the recent study done on speed dating, I was reminded of the one time I went speed dating years ago when I lived in New York. A few of my single girlfriends (oh, how I miss the days when I had single girlfriends) decided we had to try it just once. Fun detail: My friend had a guy ask her what she did for a living, and when she began to answer with "Well, I work in advertising with young adult books…" he immediately cut her off and said, "We only have two minutes, I don't need to hear that much about your job." We were all scarred for life.

Anyway, I actually did go on a date with one of my matches from the night. He was pretty cute, and seemed sweet. We met for dinner and had a good time. At the end of the night, he kissed me (I told you all New York guys do!), and asked me to come back to his apartment. I declined and said goodbye.

A couple of days later, on a Friday night, he called me. At like, 10 p.m., so…kinda sketchy. But that wasn't even the worst part. The worst part was, he left me a voicemail starting with "Hey Jenna!" But um, my name is Gena!!! (Like, my name is pronounced like Geena Davis, not Jenna Jameson, get it?) It's OK if you've been pronouncing it wrong, readers. It's a confusing spelling. But this guy had met me in person. We'd been on a date. He'd stuck his tongue down my throat! Even worse, to be able to leave a voicemail he would have to listen to my outgoing message, which clearly said "Hi, this is GENA" (with correct pronunciation, as I know how to say my own name). So he didn't bother to learn my name and he didn't bother to listen to my outgoing voicemail message? No thanks to a second date, buddy! I never returned the message, and years later, he g-chatted me to say "Hey there, I think we went on a date a while back." Yes, we did, but if you didn't know my name then, I doubt you know it now.

Overall, it wasn't the worst dating experience ever (well, it might have been for my friend), but it was far from the best.

What's your biggest dating disaster? Was I too harsh on the guy who didn't know my name? I still think he deserved to be ignored, so I'm not sorry!